There were no major shocks in Inter’s line-up. Diego Milito was only fit for the bench, so Samuel Eto’o continued upfront alone. Sulley Muntari came into the midfield.

The reverse fixture at the San Siro resulted in a 4-3 win for Inter, but also saw a fine individual display by Bale, who claimed a superb second half hattrick. There were, therefore, no question marks about how Tottenham were going to play this game, nor were there any surprises in store for Inter.

Therefore, it’s strange that Inter were so incapable of dealing with Bale, especially considering they had one of the best right-backs in the world in Maicon playing up against him. The Brazilian has not been in particularly good form so far this season, but it’s still surprising that his combination of both pace and experience was unable to stop Bale.

The simple clash between Bale and Maicon was as one-sided as it was crucial to the game – no real further explanation is needed there, though the Chalkboards below outline the battle nicely.

The question is why Inter were so unable to give Maicon any kind of assistance in dealing with the obvious dangerman, and the answer lies in a combination of poor tactics from Rafael Benitez, and a natural consequence of the battle going on elsewhere on the pitch.

When it comes to defensive abilities, there is a clear difference between the two. Biabiany is a raw youngster who jogs back when he loses the ball, and frequently ends up in central positions, unable to cover his side of the pitch. Pandev may have spent most of his career as a forward, but last season proved himself to be a player with excellent defensive attributes, sacrificing himself on the wing along with Samuel Eto’o. In the 2-0 Champions League final win over Bayern, for example, he did a very good defensive job on Philip Lahm.

Therefore, it would have been the right move to deploy him ahead of Maicon, in order to offer more defensive protection against Bale – or even just to deal with Benoit Assou-Ekotto, as the Cameroon left-back surged forward a couple of times with Biabiany completely neglecting his defensive duties, leaving Maicon with 2 v 1 when he couldn’t cope with 1 v 1. It’s surprising that Benitez – who was so keen on defensive wide players at Liverpool (Dirk Kuyt, for example) was slack in this respect.

Maicon v Bale: self-explanatory

No support from midfield

Another strange factor was why Zanetti didn’t offer slightly more support. Under Jose Mourinho he would frequently move to the right to help Maicon when up against a tricky player – in the 2-2 draw against Fiorentina, for example, he was notably deployed in a deeper, wider role than usual to combat Stevan Jovetic, who was playing a leftish position in a 4-3-3. Here, he was in a prime position to assist Maicon, having been moved across to that side due to Muntari’s presence, but rarely offered real support when Bale got the ball.

Those two factors concentrate on situations when Bale had the ball in deeper positions – when the ball was played in behind the Inter defence, with Bale high up against Maicon and running in behind, doubling up is less of an option. For situations like that, there were two reasons Inter dealt with him poorly.

Deeper line?

First, the obvious. Inter could have played a much deeper defensive line, to prevent Bale’s pace being such a threat. Last season they won the Champions League by playing notoriously deep – and this suited their backline, who are more comfortable dealing with crosses into the box than dealing with pace and trickery. There would have been downsides to playing a deep line – Crouch won a lot of headers, for example, and it’s better to keep a player like that high up the pitch. But since the primary threat was Bale, defending deep seems like an obvious tactic.

No spare man

The final factor in this concerns the positioning of Rafael Van der Vaart, in an unintentional way. The Dutchman played very high up the pitch – note his position for the first goal, on the shoulder of the last defender trying to spring the offside trap. It was not rare to see him as Spurs’ furthest player up the pitch – previously, for example, he had strayed offside when becoming the main striker as Crouch went short to win a header.

Therefore, Inter had to treat van der Vaart as a ’striker’ rather than as an ‘attacking midfielder’. Had he played deeper in central midfield, he would have been watched by an Inter midfielder, whilst Lucio and Walter Samuel would have been able to take it in turns to mark Peter Crouch, with the other one acting as a spare man.

Luka Modric was given too much space in midfield, and turned in an excellent performance

The fact that van der Vaart occupied one of the centre-backs meant that Inter were frequently without a spare man at the back, and therefore Lucio was unable to rush out to the flank and help Maicon. When van der Vaart moved deeper, Lucio was freer to come across, and Bale was less of a threat. This is basically what happened for the first 15 minutes of the second half when Bale was quieter – van der Vaart had departed through injury, Jermaine Jenas came on and played deeper than the Dutchman did, was taken care of by Inter’s midfield, and Lucio was therefore free and always acting as cover (Crouch generally played up against Samuel).

Of course, as Inter pushed men forward they left space at the back, and Lucio wasn’t able to cover enough ground to keep up with Bale when defending near the halfway line, a fact ruthlessly exploited by Bale for the final goal. But had he been used as a spare man in conjunction with a deep defensive line, Inter may have had fewer problems.

Conclusion

A game completely dominated by the battle in one area of the pitch. Maicon had a shocking game but was given little protection from his teammates. Sometimes it’s impossible to stop an in-form player, but Inter shouldn’t have been so exposed considering Phil Neville and Rafael have coped OK with Bale in the two games between the Inter games.

Elsewhere, Luka Modric was the other key player in the game – Inter’s holding players sat very deep and Wesley Sneijder played high up and to the left, which meant that Luka Modric was given far too much time on the ball and dictated the play. He also created the first goal – it was rare to see him that high up the pitch, and therefore there was some element of surprise for Inter. Harry Redknapp was forced to take off van der Vaart at half-time and bring on Jenas, and whilst it would have been most natural for Modric to play as the most attacking of the three central midfielders, Redknapp deployed Jenas in that role and left Modric in that position in space. It is decisions like that which make Redknapp a much better tactician than he is given credit for.

Spurs didn’t close out the game particularly well, however. Their habit of playing direct football was ill-suited to a 2-0 lead, when ball retention would have been a better option (much like Blackpool on Monday night) and they were too keen to get the ball forward. Roman Pavlyuchenko came on and was completely incapable of holding the ball up, failing to complete a pass in his 15 minutes on the pitch – though he got the decisive touch of the game to seal the 3-1 scoreline.

55 Responses to “ Tottenham 3-1 Inter: Inter fail to deal with Bale ”

Ironically I used Inter’s 4-2-3-1 as an example of how to offer the rightback protection in my review of Milan v Juve. Today, they failed for exactly the same reasons Milan did. No protection for the fullback which the opposition ruthlessly exploited. Shame.

Bobski on November 2, 2010 at 11:29 pm

Spot on.

After a well taken hat-trick at the San Siro, Inter shockingly failed to cover Bale adequately and paid the price again.

I wonder if there’s any substance to the rumours about Maicon’s alleged heavy drinking in recent years.

Some of his performances this season certainly suggest there is.

papyrus on November 3, 2010 at 2:50 pm

Hmm is it? Lots of Inter fans said Maicon performance started “going wrong way” when his transfer deal from Inter to Madrid failed.

Mark on November 2, 2010 at 11:47 pm

Missed the game due to work, but thats a quality article, well done ZM.

You are spot on with Benitez getting it tactically wrong, something I am surprised about, he has his faults, but tactically he is good, and putting such a defensively frail winger on the side of Assou-Ekotto and most importantly Bale, is tactical suicide.

Benitez is fighting a losing battle at Inter, because he’s always going to be compared to Mourinho, and he’s never going to beat what the Special One achieved.

matt on November 3, 2010 at 12:00 am

this is the advantage of using Eto’o in a defensive role. even though he’s scoring much more than last year, he was a great shut down presence in the critical tie against Chelsea.

Even playing Coutinho to keep the ball away from Spurs instead of Pandev would have meant reduced ball time for Bale

Roberticus on November 3, 2010 at 12:33 am

Interesting about Redknapp’s hidden reserve of tactical acumen.

Of course, his own public pronouncements dismissing tactics as guff don’t help dispel the image of being a luddite who dis, but I think what unfairly counts against him is the following

1) British culture where working-class people are (uniquely?) scorned as being stupid and pretentious if they dare to engage in intelligent discussion…often to the point of internalising such prejudices and holding it against their own peers.
2)..perhaps linked to the point above, a distrust of journalists: with the ones whom he does trust, Redknapp has been happy to speak off the record about tactics…perhaps not with an eloquence, but he did mention a few years back that he’d like to play Joe Cole (then at Chelsea) at the tip of a midfield diamond for England.
This is not the talk of someone who thinks tactics are guff.

Johnny on November 3, 2010 at 12:50 am

If Inter’s holding midfielders weren’t pressing Modric, and they weren’t doubling up Bale, what the hell were they doing?

Jackal on November 3, 2010 at 4:58 am

Maicon found himself 1-on-1 way too often with Bale. Zanetti should have came over to help contain Bale while Maicon seeks to tackle.

yarnshih on November 3, 2010 at 5:02 am

Nothing, that’s what! Muntari was awful and made errors both in and out of possession, Zanetti was constantly covering for him and doing the job of two men, and as a consequence the Spurs midfield ran riot and could constantly locate Bale against Maicon in an isolation situation.

It almost seemed like Sneijder, Biabiany and Eto’o had been instructed to stay high up the pitch and leave defensive duties to the back six + Pandev, so that Inter could break quickly, but with Muntari and Zanetti unable to get the ball forward quickly this not only didn’t work, but left Inter short at the back.

John on November 4, 2010 at 12:04 am

I think inter Milan should have played a 4-1-2-3 with the holding midfielder specifically marking van der vart so when he stepped in 2 mid field there would have been 4 at the back, and inter would have a spare man at the back. When he was high against the cbs there would have been 5 at the back still maintaining the man advantage and if maicon gets beat by ball the spare man can pull over and stop him. also the fact that they would have 2 cms higher would mean they could effectively press modric and jenas or who ever was in center midfield for spurs. Finally they would have if the played the 4-1-2-3 they would had wide players to track the spurs full back if necessary. and conduct counter attacks if that was really their game plan.

Loydinho on November 4, 2010 at 8:26 pm

Agree with this, the only problem is , do inter have the players to fit this system ? Not sure that zanetti is physically dominant enough to play as an anchor on his own, and how would sniejder be able to play as a more withdrawn midfielder? But yes , in retrospect, this is definatly the action they should have taken .

DNT on November 3, 2010 at 12:59 am

Your new format chalkboard is hard to read, ZM. Please switch back to the old format, which has the players’ names and arrows indicating their tendency on the pitch.

Btw, it’s now my habit to check your blog for new articles after every major game. Excellent work!

Bag on November 3, 2010 at 2:12 am

He said that he’s experiencing certain technical problems for now,and that the usual board would be back shortly.

Standard_Deviance on November 3, 2010 at 4:37 pm

Cool, I had the same reaction to the new chalkboard format as DNT. Glad to hear it will eventually go back to what it was… Keep up the good work, ZM!

DARREN WILSON on November 3, 2010 at 1:08 am

Great game by Spurs, they set their stall out from the off and stuck to it, even with the withdrawl of VDV they still had their main man in Bale able to rip Inter to shreds on the left; no way Mourinho would have tolerated that for the whole game, he would have made changes once VDV caem off to pen Bale in. Will Benitez last longer than one year after such aa shoddy display, the reigning champions of Europe should not be undone in such a manner. Let me say though that these two ties between the two have been THE games to watch in this seasons UCL, great stuff….

rawr on November 3, 2010 at 1:10 am

Bale’s dominance was shocking and drew all the attention, but also decisive was Inter completely unable to win the midfield battle. Zanetti and (especially) Muntari could not move the ball forward, Maicon was shockingly awful, and Chivu was not much of a threat going forward. Inter did not get the ball to Eto’o and Sneijder enough, forcing both players to collect the ball from deep position at times.

The midfield injury problem really hurt Inter, but it’s no excuse for this performance.

A on November 3, 2010 at 2:31 am

A comment on the Biabiany issue (and I just spent about and hour and a half arguing this on an Inter discussion board), he was probably the best choice going into the match. Pandev likes to cut inside when he plays on the right, which is natural. However, that would have opened up space for Assou-Ekotto. Biabiany is more likely to keep his position, is fast enough to keep up (and in fact overtake) Bale, and provides a great counterattacking long ball option. He failed to track back, and that cost Inter.
As for the midfield support, if Zanetti were to help Maicon, That would have left Muntari (not a very reliable defensive player) outnumbered against a very creative spurs midfield.
I think Inter’s downfall was simply playing too high. The lineup was perfect for counterattacking, and that seemed to be the gameplan for the first ten minutes, but something within the squad broke down and they decided to try and keep possession, and that cost them the game.

ariez on November 3, 2010 at 8:29 am

nice argument. but it seems he wasn’t instructed to track back and help Maicon or if he was, its surprising Benitez didn’t do anything about it.

A on November 3, 2010 at 1:39 pm

And that’s the part where everything fell apart. However, the initial lineup seemed suited.

Yelda on November 3, 2010 at 2:36 am

Dear ZonalMarking. please revert to your old chalkboard for the team lineups. this new one sucks.

B on November 3, 2010 at 3:50 am

Dude, seriously, change up you’re line up chart back the way it was. my EYES ….

D on November 3, 2010 at 5:18 am

Maybe Inter were a bit too cocky regarding Bale, like he only got a hattrick because they ‘turned off’ towards the end in Milan or something and they wanted to show him up for the ‘average’ player he is….I do think young Coutinho’s brilliant performance was unfairly overshadowed by Bale’s hattrick in that first leg, but it’s still overthinking the mind games a bit to not be careful with him. Modric was also very good in the first half, and BAE and Kaboul did well.

Anyways as a Spurs fan, Bale is welcome to shag me anytime

john on November 3, 2010 at 10:21 am

As an arsenal fan I certainly hope you are male. Only then would Bale being welcome to you make me smirk.

On topic: I am disappointed in Inter not making enough of an effort to stop Bale. You’d have thought Benitez would have at least taken some time to study Tottenham’s matches and realise Bale CAN be stopped and it’s not even about covering, Maicon shouldn’t have been so tight, feed Bale into the centre and let zanetti and muntari come over to help. Those two went pretty AWOL for long periods.

Benitez’s starting line-up is atrocious. Everyone could see the impact of Milito and yet he only came on when it was too late. I fail to understand how it makes sense to drop coutinho rather than biabiany. It’s a no-brainer for a coach to decide whether to drop a vibrant and dangerous young winger or another similarly young but not similarly vibrant and dangerous winger whose only contribution seems to be to rush into the centre when in possession. Even if you persist with biabiany at least give enough balls for him to use his one useful attribute and chase them down.

This defeat was easily avoidable IMO and though it was Maicon getting smoked Benitez has to take the majority of the blame for this; even more than Zanetti or Muntari or Biabiany. I’m no coach and I often refrain from criticising them, acceding my inferior knowledge about coaching but these decision are obviously wrong. And the subs were bad as well, are thiago motta, stankovic, cambiasso and mariga all injured? Even then throwing on an untested youngster (nwankwo) in a crucial position at such an important time in the match? Madness! At the very least Santon could have been brought on.

Em on November 3, 2010 at 12:39 pm

Thaigo Motta, Stankovic, Cambiasso and Mariga are, in fact, all injured — Benitez had very little choice with his bench. Additionally, this was Milito’s first game back after injury (yes, him too) and he’s been disappointing and listless in most of his appearances this season. While on paper he looks better than Biabiany, it’s hard to see how starting Milito wouldn’t be taking an even big chance than leaving Biabiany out there was.

john on November 3, 2010 at 1:44 pm

Oh I see; so all the midfield options were injured. But again, Biabiany has shown nothing that warranted a start over coutinho. If Benitez wanted impact from the bench IMO Biabiany would be better off starting form the bench. What about Santon? He is right footed, had he played on Maicon’s side but ahead of him (we all know how well santon can attack) I dare say Bale would have been well shackled and Inter would not have lacked offensive thrust, as it was Maicon was isolated time and time again as this excellent article points out. Biabiany has shown no talent at defending so how Benitez hoped to avoid a repeat of Bale’s performance is beyond comprehension. Maicon is good but clearly aging. Benitez seems to rely more on luck than a perfect plan.

Fact; Mourinho would not have let this happen. Maybe in the first leg but certainly not the second. We all know about Mourinho’s tactical nous and ability to get the best concerning defensive workrate and even playing players out of position for the benefit of the team.

Milito also is NOT an impact sub; such a player has to be brought on with plenty of time remaining. Unfit as he may, be bringing him on so late doesn’t help. Also note that Benitez did not bother with ANY tactical re-shuffles even though his side were not functioning properly. Eto’o and Sneijder were clearly struggling and coming deep; whereupon they would be descended upon by eager tottenham midfielder and defenders. Even on my couch at home it was clear some shifting needed to be done. The mediocre performances from some players would have been avoided with some intelligent reshuffling. Why didn’t Benitez take a leaf from Ferguson’s book and play a pacy right-back? (ferguson played rafael) It’s not like inter lack speedy defensively sound right footed players: Cordoba(who indeed got smoked in the first leg but would have been better prepared this time) and Santon could have kept up with Bale at least. Santon kept C-Ronaldo under wraps two seasons ago. But he didn’t even get a chance in this game. Why? So many rhetorical questions. One simple answer……Rafa is tactically inept.

john on November 3, 2010 at 1:51 pm

It’s easy and probably erroneous to criticise Rafa but he’s the coach, he has all the same tools mourinho had and yet does not seem to react to situations.

A concurrent them in most reader comments so far is “I wonder why Rafa didn’t do *this”….”I wonder why Rafa didn’t do anything to address “this” problem”. Therein lies the rub; there were glaring problems and there was nothing done about them. Why? Were his hands tied, did he not have personnel available. No. It’s not even about wrong decision anymore; it’s about the lack of reaction.

ketakev on November 3, 2010 at 3:39 pm

Yeah sure.. it’s milk.

Bag on November 4, 2010 at 1:58 am

“Why didn’t Benitez take a leaf from Ferguson’s book and play a pacy right-back?”

Well, isn’t Maicon supposed to be a pacy right-back? I suppose the cross-town drinking sessions with ‘binho and ‘dinho have been getting to him…

Sneijder was having to drop so deep simply because Muntari and Zanetti have no ability whatsoever to pass it up to him. Cambiasso, Motta, or Stankovic was sorely missed. Last season the entire team played deep,including Sneijder, and depended on Milito’s ability to hold up he ball. This season, with Milito mostly injured or out of form, Sneijder has to play higher up the pitch to better support Eto’o, and this fails when none of the DMs can pick them out.

Rafa did make mistakes in picking Biabiany over Coutinho, and he should probably have played Chivu as the left DM over Muntari and played Santon as Left-Back. Maybe he should have played Pandev on the right, maybe not. But Cordoba has been getting smoked by everybody as of late, and there really wasn’t much options with Milito’s form and injury. Also, the slow 37yo Zanetti isn’t really that able to cover two positions at a time, and Muntari could be facing up to three creative players in the middle alone, if Zanetti doesn’t get back in time.

Of course Rafa did mess quite a few things up here, but he really wasn’t helped by the injuries. If Man Utd had as many,they would be playing Gibson and O’shea. If Chelsea had as many, they would be playing Ivanovic, Zhirkov, and McEachran. If Barca had as many,they would be playing with some 19 year olds. And if ACM had as many, we all would be having a laugh(and I’m an ACM supporter).

Indeed Rafa has to take the blame for lots of things here, but there’s no need for an overreaction. Nobody was saying he was inept when Inter were 4 up in the first half at the Meazza, and that wasn’t really by luck. People are forgetting that last season Inter barely got out of the Group stages; they just managed to scrape a win past Rubin Kazan to qualify, and before that they were 0-1 down to Dynamo at 85min before somehow winning the match.

JediRage on November 3, 2010 at 1:29 pm

Why would Rafa bother to stoop to such levels as devising tactics? He thinks he’s better than Hodgson, Fergie and that he single handedly drove Liverpool to ’success’. His arrogance is shocking.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I pity Inter’s players and fans.

FinnManager on November 3, 2010 at 6:48 am

My points while watching the game were pretty much the same as ZM´s:

- No support when defending against the obvious dangerman Bale
- Biabiany in his current form is a good sprinter but not so good a footballer
- Pandev (and Biabiany) were both quite useless when Inter was going forward and provided no support for Eto’o
- When Coutinho came in he dragged midfielders nicely with his runs thus creating (much needed) space for Milito and Eto’o even though he didn’t have a particularly good game
- The current Spurs backline looked prone to mistakes
- Crouch does a huge amount of work when his side is defending (at least when comparing to the hugely disappointing Pavlyuchenko)

I think the whole of the left side of Spurs deserved credit, Assou-Ekotto was immense defensively and supporting Bale on the left, Modric as the left of the central two had a great game and really dictated the tempo Spurs played at releasing Bale when possible while also carrying the ball forward on occasions in the second half when Jenas had dropped deep and of course the boy wonder Bale.

Those three plus VDV in the first half are on top form and if Lennon hits some form too Spurs could be more devastating and hopefully more clinical in the games…..having beaten CL champions Inter I’m expecting Spurs to go and drop points at Bolton because that is the Spurs way

Konsta K. on November 3, 2010 at 10:52 am

Well first of all, this was one of the most entertaining games I’ve seen all season. The tempo of Tottenham’s play was amazing and the self-confidence of the team was tremendouysly high. I literally smiled everytime Modric-VDV-Bale axis was working like a thought.

Almost everything been said about the tactics so I’d like to take a different point of view, and point out some shortcomings of the Tottenham team in the match:

1)Hutton/Lennon (/Huddlestone/Gallas) against inverted wingers:

As soon as Eto’o moved to the left, Hutton was in all kinds of troubles against him and Lennon did very little to help him (there were few nervy moment in the 1st half also, though it was Pandev against them. They positioned themselves very badly a couple of times). Gallas could offer support also, but theres a clear lack of understanding with Kaboul (and Hudd) so he was reluctant to do this. After Eto’o’s goal Harry made a good substitution in bringing Palacios to cope with him.

2)Huddlestone’s role

Fielding Huddlestone along with Modric and VDV seems a bit odd to me. Though he clearly offers physical presence, and like’s to sit deep in the midfield, he is everything but a classical defensive midfielder. To me, he is very much a deeplying playmaker, a bit in the mould of Carrick. So what is needed when he is on the pitch, is LEGS. Modric does more than his fair share of defending also, but he just isn’t very skilled in that department. Inter failed to exploit this due to their lack of quality in most counter-attacks, but you could clearly see how Hudd was very often on the back foot (and Modric had to concede some fouls in dangerous areas). Not least because of his lack of pace. I know Palacios has been criticised quite heavily in the Tottenham camp, but he seems more natural choice to go along those two. I haven’t seen enough of Sandro to comment.

3)Kaboul

Though he had somewhat decent game, but his concentration is really a worry to Tottenham. He made some very wierd decisions and clearings, often resulting in opportunities for a quick break. I wish Harry finds his 1st choice partnership at the back FAST, since it really has cost them this season.

Roberticus on November 3, 2010 at 11:43 am

Benitez has given Etoo two different roles this season; one, as a centre-forward as he played vs Spurs, the second (and most effective in my opinion)as a loose outside-forward starting from the left but with little defensive obligation (hence Chivu’s irritation at a lack of defensive cover along his flank), in other words, similar to Robinho’s role for Brazil.

I wonder if Etoo still could’ve done a similar job but on the other flank and with Milito playing more centrally. Of course, the Cameroonian forward wouldn’t be as comfortable as when he can cut in onto his stronger right peg, but don’t forget he played two massive games with Barcelona in this position, versus Madrid and Manchester United – scoring in the second.

THis would have enabled Inter to play a 4-3-1-2 shape, and crucially would’ve assigned Zanetti to a wide-ish defensive midfield position (similar to how he occassionally played under Mourinho)and cover Maicon’s forward runs. Also, the lurking presence of Etoo along the right flank (but with little defensive responsibility) would’ve discouraged Assou-Ekotto from overlapping Bale vs Maicon.

Benitez got this one badly wrong and left one of the finest wing-backs in the world humiliated.

john on November 3, 2010 at 1:26 pm

very well said.

A on November 3, 2010 at 1:37 pm

But that would have left the opposite flank with Hutton-Lennon vs. Chivu, unless Muntari were to drift over and support, but that would have left Sneijder and Coutinho to deal with Huddlestone-Modric-vdV.
It could have worked, but it would have needed a lot more preparation than that.

Roberticus on November 3, 2010 at 4:31 pm

True; but that is viewing things from a rather static perspective.

Yes, Inter’s bank of three in midfield would have to shift across depending on which side Spurs had the ball, so yes, Muntari would come across and Zanetti would tuck in centrally beside the other central midfielder.
Spurs could of course switch the play to the other (Bale’s) flank, but they would have to do this sufficient speed and accuracy before Inter had shifted across (with Sneijder and possibly Etoo hustling Modric and Huddlestone); Spurs would eventually find a way to shift the ball across but at least taken the sting would have been taken out of their advance. It’s not so much a prevention tactic as a delay…

A on November 3, 2010 at 4:36 pm

In that sense, yes, you’re right. In theory, Inter’s starting 11 was probably the best option, but they had to play defensively, which didn’t happen.

Johannes Cruijff on November 3, 2010 at 12:16 pm

I was surprised when Benitez did’t change things after first 15-20 minutes. It was very clear that they need to defend deeper and closer one to another. Look at Tottenham defensive formation, close 4 4 1 1 which enable them to defend good and counter when they receive a ball. Harry won this against Benitez.
Surprising from Benitez not to change things.

Johannes Cruijff on November 3, 2010 at 5:42 pm

Another thing, when he (Rafa) switched to 2 strikers Inter created 2 or 3 nice chances, but it was too late. If Inter was defending poor, why they couldn’t attack more narrowly? I mean, they could play with 2 strikers from the beginning, in some sorth of 4 3 1 2! Then, one of those 3 could help Maicon, J. Zanetti for example. I am sure that would work better than this, 3 players did’t play defence, that can’t function!

“Well first of all, this was one of the most entertaining games I’ve seen all season. The tempo of Tottenham’s play was amazing and the self-confidence of the team was tremendouysly high. I literally smiled everytime Modric-VDV-Bale axis was working like a thought.”

It was great to watch. It was the most enjoyable game that I’ve watched since Sevilla beat Real Madrid at home last season.

I was disappointed in Hutton’s performance. Even though he was exposed to Eto’o later on, he looked out of his depth all game. Some of us in Scotland hoped that he would develop into something like what Bale is now, but at Champions League level, Spurs need an alternative right-back.

ketakev on November 3, 2010 at 3:48 pm

“The decision to field Goran Pandev on the left and Jonathan Biabiany on the right was a curious one, since both players are capable of playing on either side. Admittedly, the way they were positioned tonight is probably the side most natural for both”

Was this an attempt by Benitez to ‘un-invert’ his wingers? Since both players have a favoured side, surely by putting them on their correct sides he felt he was limiting their tendencies to cut inside on attacks, hopefully leaving them better prepared on the flanks.

Clearly this didn’t work out for reasons stated by others above, but in trying to crack the enigma that is Benitez Internazionale, this is the best theory I can come up with…

spurs only had 5 shots on target compared to inter’s 6, but all 5 from spurs were inside the box. only 2 from inter were & of course 1 of those went in. without 1st choice keeper in gomes, and 2 first pick centre backs too, in dawson & king, it’s pretty poor from Inter to not “get at them” a bit more.

By the way I just bought the Total Football 2010 CL app for my iPhone so it’ll get better. My first chalkboard is going to show everywhere on the field that Maicon shit himself against Spurs. I already tried doing one plotting “fair tackles by Gattusso” but I was left looking at a totally green screen. Guess it didn’t work…

David on November 4, 2010 at 2:42 am

Disappointed with lack of the tactical acumen of Rafa……………

Pank on November 8, 2010 at 11:55 am

I like the old formation board better, its easier to refer to when the writeup talks about a particular player…now i have to look at the caption for the player number and look up again to the picture to notice which position each player was playing!